Here at Weirdly, we’re big on learning sideways. Pulling knowledge from other departments, disciplines, roles and applying it to make us better at what we do.

When it comes to creating world-class candidate experiences, there’s a lot we can learn from our sisters-from-other-misters over in the customer experience team. The phrase, “candidates are customers” is bandied about a lot in recruitment circles (we’ve even used it ourselves) so it’s likely we’re not sharing new news here. But here’s the challenge:

When’s the last time you talked to one of your customer experience people with a view to applying their tactics to YOUR department?

If your answer is along the lines of “ah…[shuffles foot]…I’m just very extremely busy”, we get it. That’s why we’ve taken this great blog of insights from the Customer Experience masters over at Qualtrics and translated them into simple snippets of advice you can apply to your candidate experience planning.

CX for CX: Pearls of Wisdom from the masters

Data is only useful if you use it:

Collecting piles of data is one thing, gathering data you can actually use is quite another. There’s always a temptation, to go for volume – we’re in the “measure everything” era, after all. Maybe if we measure every possible thing that has a number attached to it, we’ll reach a utopic future in which bias doesn’t exist, a single ad sees us flooded with spectacular applicants and engagement is at 100%.

Look, I’m not going to be a hater. Maybe one day we’ll have the tools (and budgets) to make that future a reality. In the meantime, sifting through that pile is overwhelming at best, not even being attempted at worst.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Actionable, timely information is the most valuable. Start like a scientist – with a hypothesis. So you’ve done a quick candidate experience audit and you reckon your weak points are pre-apply and post phone screen. What specific data do you need to inform and then measure changes to those experiences? % completion to next stage? Application point drop-offs? % followup touch points completed post phone screen?

Whatever you choose, being selective and then making sure you’re consciously linking the data you gather to an explicit goal will make your life WAY less stressful.

And if you’re bringing in tools to help smooth the way, make sure the data that comes through those tools is specific, regular and focussed.

When it comes to feedback, timing matters:

In customer experience, encouraging people to share feedback spontaneously is gaining popularity. This involves building more opportunities and methods for customers to communicate with you.

Over here in the HRM world we could take a page out of that book. Ok, maybe it’s not useful to open the door to a constant stream of candidate commentary but most of us could afford to crack a window open.

How real-time is the feedback you’re getting about your candidate experience? Is it a 3month-later survey with your new hires? Or are people given the opportunity to share an NXS/cNPS style score after key interactions in your process?

Real-time, in the moment feedback gives you a super authentic perspective to complement the retrospective insights you’re already gathering.

Go wide when investigating industry benchmarks/best practices:

If you’re building a world class experience, you don’t need to limit your inspiration to your own playing field.

Need to boost your career site performance? Traditionally you’d use monitoring to work out a “good” benchmark and try to beat that. Need candidate experience performance metrics? You could find the average for similar companies on this NXS/cNPS benchmark research and work from there.

There’s nothing wrong with those approaches exactly, but if that’s all you do, you can get pretty trapped. When you stay in your industry lane, you’re not often exposed to new, fresh methods. It becomes very easy to keep recycling the same tactics or get distracted by what your nearest competitors are doing.

If you’re really dedicated to building beyond-the-ordinary candidate experiences, you need to look for beyond-the-ordinary inspiration.

You might be an enterprise IT company with an ok cNPS rating compared to your industry, but look at the Retail benchmark. What makes those companies consistently rate so highly? Are there things they’re doing that you could emulate to boost your own performance?

Looking outside your own market niche or dataset gives you a more diverse ideas. It can help expand your understanding of what’s possible and in the process, refine your own standards and benchmarks for great experience.

Qualtrics talks about how the best customer experience brands in the world aren’t satisfied to lead just their categories in CX, they want to be the best across adjacent categories too.

Well I’d argue, the same could be said of the companies dedicated to building top-shelf candidate experiences.

We’re so proud to be working with a bunch of them – companies like Bumble, Uber, Target, Atlassian and Bunnings. If you’re interested in hearing more about the candidate experiences they’re delivering with Weirdly, book a demo with our team today.

Here at Weirdly, we reckon allowing your candidates the chance to introduce themselves with a 15-30 second clip during your application process is smart. It lets them showcase more of what makes them shine in a way a resume never will. If you’re recruiting for customer facing roles, VideoIntros also give you the chance to see how they present themselves – you get a bit of a taste of what your customers might experience in their interactions with that candidate.

But how do you choose the right question to use with your particular candidates?

First, you’ve got to ask yourself what you’re after. Looking to see how well they “pitch” themselves? Want to find out how they align with your big mission? Or maybe you’re just trying to get a look at their personality – to see if they’ll slot into your culture or work well with a certain team?

Whatever you choose, you’ll get an insight into your candidate, and your candidate will also learn something about your employer brand and company culture. For example, a question like

“In 30 seconds or fewer, tell us the top three words your last manager would use to describe you, and why”

tells the candidate you value transparency and honesty, self-awareness and performance (because let’s face it, noone is going to assume you want to hear “lazy, late and rude” as their three words). Whereas a question like

“In 15 seconds, tell us who you think would win in a fight: A ?or a ??”

says to your candidate that you have a culture of fun, with a slightly oddball sense of humor.

That means it’s an awesome opportunity for you to differentiate yourself from your competitors, to make your application process feel more engaging and inclusive.

Pretty great opportunity right? If you’re like me and suffering from a bit of decision-fatigue, don’t get stuck trying to come up with the perfect question on your own. Use the list below to tweak (or you know, steal) the right question for you. We’ve even handily categorised them for you!

Thanks, us!

VideoIntro questions: Our favourites so far

Questions that get candidates to pitch themselves to you

Why are you such a good fit for this job? (Tell us your name and answer in 30secs)

In 30secs, which parts of this role do you think you could hit the ground running with, and why?

If we hired you for this job and we gave you three wishes what would they be? (Tell us in 30secs)

Challenges giving you insight into core values/mission alignment

Tell us about why are you job hunting at the moment (in 30secs or fewer).

You’ve got 30secs. Tell us about 2 things on your bucket list.

Growing up what did you always want to be? Tell us in 30secs or fewer.

Our company’s core mission is to provide the highest quality goods for the lowest possible prices. In 30secs, tell us how or why that mission resonates with you.

Questions to encourage transparency or self-reflection

In 30secs, which of your previous roles best prepares you for this one and why?

What would your last manager say if I asked them to describe you? (Tell us in 30secs)

Tell us, what were your first thoughts when you saw that we were hiring? (in 30secs or fewer)

Quirky questions to showcase personality

Are you a cat or a dog person? (Tell us in 15secs or fewer)

In 30secs or fewer, what would you buy if you won a million dollars?

In the news story of your life what would the headline be? (Tell us in 15secs or fewer)

Teach me something I don’t know in 45 secs

Got a great idea for a question? Share it with us on twitter, or book a demo with our crew to find out how you could integrate Weirdly VideoIntros seamlessly into your own recruitment process. This is your chance to give your candidate experience a big boost in the new year.

The world of work is changing. Rapidly. Like, insanely fast. So a groups of us got together and figured it was time to build a global community for the inspirational people at the forefront of that change. A crew of People-people.

As the people in charge of finding, nurturing and helping people find fulfilment in this world of work, recruiters, HR folks and people with confusing talent-related titles are the forward guard of this change. Most of us meet up at conferences or chat online in twitter chats and LinkedIn groups but it’s kind of sporadic and often we’re only rubbing shoulders with other locals.

A more global community, one that makes it easy to share ideas, learn from each other’s successes (and failures) and inspire each other to keep pushing people and culture forward. That’s the kind of group we want to build here.

Who can join PeoplePeople?

This group is for anyone in the recruiting, HR or People-and-Talent community. If you spend your days hiring people (for yourself or on behalf of others) or building culture in your organisation, this is for you. We want your input, your ideas and your opinions on the way the world of work is changing.

As well as any killer gifs you’ve been saving up about having the Best Week Ever!

Why use Slack for this recruitment community?

The long and the short of it is, Slack is hella convenient. A steadily increasing number of us are using this new communication platform in our businesses already. That means we don’t have to go somewhere new to access our gang of PeoplePeople. We’ll all be right there, at the end of your finger tips whenever you need to bounce an idea off someone, get some advice or feel inspired by other talent experts.

Also, Slack is pretty beautiful. And who has time to look at ugly software all day?

I want in! How do I join PeoplePeople?

Jump on the button below and request an invite. We’ll fire you through a link to join within 24hrs, click on that and you’re in!

Don’t forget to set up a profile picture and tell us a bit about yourself – this is an awesome chance for some of that personal branding everyone keeps talking about too!

March 8, 2016/

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What is Weirdly?

Weirdly builds the best candidate experiences in the world, for the biggest brands on earth. We deliver huge efficiencies for global recruiters through better soft skills screening early in the hiring process.